Ethics in Medicine

[Said1]

In my first post (above) I was eluding to the fact that we have the science and technology to cure or prevent and accomplish many things.

How about another thought….

If we can clone animals, if we can decode DNA, if we can “treat” most anything, why can’t we cure/prevent a damn common cold, cure cancer, aids?
It makes no sense to me.

Like I said, ya gotta wonder.

Viruses are tricky and often unresponsive to radical treatment. I've read certain Cancers are related to viruses too. It's not the virus that kills you, it's the host of infections that turn up due to it. I had shingles inside my eyeball!

 

[Mariner]

we haven't cured the common cold, or the flu, is that the viruses constantly mutate. If you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't catch any more colds.

On this subject, though--there is an absolutely enormous problem within medicine concerning the appropriate allocation of research funding. It is one of the reasons we need government funding, because private research will seek to cure common and expensive diseases. But government funding is also influenced by non-objective factors. For example, schizophrenia affects fully 1% of the U.S. population, and causes vast disability, comparable to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. But compared to cancer research, schizophrenia research gets 1/30th the funding.

The same issue is obvious in medical pay. People who treat children or other vulnerable, politically weak populations--pediatricians, psychiatrists, inner-city internists--earn less money than the average physician. Starting pediatrician salaries are similar to those of nurses. Those who primarily treat the diseases of upper-class white people--e.g. cardiologists, dermatologists, heart surgeons etc.--can make far more money.

There is legislation that supports "orphan drug" research, encouraging companies to seek cures for illnesses that are too uncommon to produce easy profit.

Mariner

(I am a physician, and treat primarily poor and disabled people. I earn 1/5 what my brother, a heart surgeon, makes. He isn't any smarter, more competent, or harder working than me--it's just the system.)

 

[Mr. P]

....

(I am a physician, and treat primarily poor and disabled people. I earn 1/5 what my brother, a heart surgeon, makes. He isn't any smarter, more competent, or harder working than me--it's just the system.)

A Doc just as I would have been....Dedicated to the cause.

My plan was to practice in rural Ga. and figuratively speaking take pigs and chickens for payment, but I started flying first and never made it to med school, I do regret that.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

we haven't cured the common cold, or the flu, is that the viruses constantly mutate. If you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't catch any more colds.

On this subject, though--there is an absolutely enormous problem within medicine concerning the appropriate allocation of research funding. It is one of the reasons we need government funding, because private research will seek to cure common and expensive diseases. But government funding is also influenced by non-objective factors. For example, schizophrenia affects fully 1% of the U.S. population, and causes vast disability, comparable to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. But compared to cancer research, schizophrenia research gets 1/30th the funding.

The same issue is obvious in medical pay. People who treat children or other vulnerable, politically weak populations--pediatricians, psychiatrists, inner-city internists--earn less money than the average physician. Starting pediatrician salaries are similar to those of nurses. Those who primarily treat the diseases of upper-class white people--e.g. cardiologists, dermatologists, heart surgeons etc.--can make far more money.

There is legislation that supports "orphan drug" research, encouraging companies to seek cures for illnesses that are too uncommon to produce easy profit.

Mariner

(I am a physician, and treat primarily poor and disabled people. I earn 1/5 what my brother, a heart surgeon, makes. He isn't any smarter, more competent, or harder working than me--it's just the system.)

Medicine should not be socialized, if that's what you're getting at. People should pay more out of pocket, and comparison shop price between physicians, and medical supply vendors. I know you would like to just steal a big wad of cash from the people and use it however you want, but that's just not moral. All socialized systems are worse than ours, even though the current insurance system is not ideal either. The presentation of the false choice is the logical trick you libs are using. We see straight through it. It will never happen in america.